My Take: Why My Family is Quitting the Boy Scouts

Editor's Note: John Stemberger is an Eagle Scout and president of On My Honor, a coalition of concerned parents, Scout Leaders, Scouting donors, Eagle Scouts and others affiliated with the Boy Scouts of America who are united in their support of Scouting’s timeless values and their opposition to open homosexuality in the Scouts. Find more information at www.OnMyHonor.net.

 

By John Stemberger, Special to CNN

(CNN)– On Thursday, delegates to the Boy Scouts of America’s national conference met in Grapevine, Texas, to determine the fate of one of the most beloved organizations in this country’s history. This organization that has stood the test of time will probably be destroyed now that they have decided to admit openly gay boys as Scouts.

Sex and politics have no place in the Boy Scouts, and allowing open homosexuality will lead to myriad bad consequences.

First, the new BSA policy is logically incoherent and morally and ethically inconsistent. The BSA had never discriminated against homosexuals. The BSA membership application did not ask about sexual orientation, and there has never been a witch hunt in the BSA to find or remove its gay members.    Continue at John Stemberger

Boy Scouts at the Brink — The Moment of Decision Arrives

Meeting Thursday in Grapevine, Texas, the National Council of the Boy Scouts of America will decide whether it will retain or revise its historic membership policy on the issue of homosexuality. The 1,400 voting members of the B.S.A. National Council hold the future of one of America’s most iconic organizations in their hands. In reality, they are not only deciding a matter of membership policy. They are actually deciding the future of the entire organization. 

The culture wars came to the Boy Scouts many years ago. For the last few decades, the Boy Scouts have had to fight battles with both secularists and homosexual activists. The secular challenge came first, with demands that the Scouts drop their historic requirement that boys affirm belief in God as a criterion for membership. Soon thereafter, the demand for the full inclusion of homosexual members and leaders followed. The Scouts have had to fight legal battles both locally and nationally, costing the venerable organization millions of dollars in legal fees. In 2000, the B.S.A. prevailed at the U.S. Supreme Court when the nation’s highest court ruled that the Boy Scouts had a constitutional right to exclude openly gay boys and leaders from the organization, so long as that exclusion is based in one of the organization’s core convictions — an “expressive message.” The B.S.A. won the case because that is exactly what they claimed. They argued that excluding openly homosexual boys and leaders from Scouting was necessary and required by the Scout Oath.   Continue at Al Mohler

Will the Boy Scouts Pitch Their Tents Toward Sodom?

The Boy Scouts of America (B.S.A.), which only last summer confirmed its policy that kept homosexuals from joining, has now been debating the possibility of ending its ban on gay membership in the organization. On Wednesday, the organization announced that it is delaying its vote on the issue until May.¹ The proposal, if passed in May as it is currently written, would take a sort of “middle ground” on the issue: the decision to admit openly gay members to the Boy Scouts would be left to individual troop leaders.

Of course, leaving the decision up to individual troops would essentially be a non-answer from the Boy Scouts of America. What’s more, it would essentially serve as an affirmation of homosexual behavior as much as it would be if scout troops were forced to admit gay members. The organization, if it chooses the route of simply leaving the decision up to individual troops, will have given in to a false idea of neutrality. The B.S.A. will have bought into the idea that by not voicing its opposition to or support for homosexual behavior, it can avoid conflict and not force anyone to violate his beliefs.

There really is no such thing as neutrality on the issue of homosexual behavior. The B.S.A.’s initial desire to hurry the vote is likely because the organization has been under tremendous pressure in the political climate of the past few years to give in to the demands of homosexual activists, while the delay is more likely due to the B.S.A.’s realization that it will lose a significant number of participants if the ban on gay members is lifted. If the proposal to pass the decision on to individual troops is adopted, the Boy Scouts of America will have at least partially capitulated to the schemes of the homosexual agenda—and its capitulation will be indicative of where the American culture as a whole is headed. A non-theistic, secular worldview is increasingly being imposed on society, and because it is antagonistic to the biblical worldview, it could hardly be neutral.    Continue at Steve Golden

The Case of the Lesbian Den Mother: Moral Reasoning Exposed

By now, most Americans have probably heard of the lesbian mother forced out as a den mother for the Tiger Scouts, a program for first-graders offered by the Boy Scouts of America. For a few days, the story filtered through the Internet until it broke as an Associated Press article last week.

That article by reporter John Seewer reveals that Jennifer Tyrrell had been serving as a leader in Ohio Pack 109 of the Tiger Scouts. Tyrrell was forced to leave that post when officials of the Boy Scouts learned that she was a lesbian. The Boy Scouts of America have had a clearly stated policy against homosexuals serving as adult leaders, though that policy has usually been applied to men.

As a private organization, the Boy Scouts has the legal right to exclude both gays and lesbians from membership and leadership. That right was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000, but that has not ended the controversy. Since that decision, the Boy Scouts have paid dearly for the policy, as some cities and other governments and institutions have severed support and relationships with the BSA and its local programs.   Continue at Al Mohler